Radiolarian discoveries indicate that deep-marine conditions prevailed in central Tibet from the early Middle Jurassic until well into the Early Cretaceous (late Hauterivian-early Aptian; 131-121 Ma) and help to constrain the temporal extent of oceanic conditions along the Bangong-Nujiang suture. These new fossils occur in chert or siliceous mudstone blocks associated with the Lagkor Tso ophiolitic mélange. Basin inversion associated with closure of Mesotethys between the Qiangtang and Lhasa terranes was accompanied by mélange formation and predated regionally widespread deposition of overlying shallow-marine late Aptian-Albian orbitolinid limestones.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. A B S T R A C TDetailed field mapping combined with a petrologic and geochemical investigation of the Zedong terrane within the Yarlung Tsangpo suture zone provides insights to the evolution of now mostly subducted portions of Tethys during the Late Jurassic. The terrane is dominated by volcanic rocks of shoshonitic affinity, which were erupted in a submarine oceanic island arc setting. The volcanic island arc was built on a basement of oceanic crust, and the shoshonites locally overlie a thin section of pillowed island arc tholeiites and red ribbon-bedded radiolarian cherts. Geochemistry of the shoshonites suggests that their development occurred in a setting analogous to that of Late Miocene to Early Pliocene Fiji and was associated with an arc rifting. We speculate that this event may have been a far-field response to developments associated with Gondwana breakup.

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The Kiselyovsky subterrane is the northeastern section of the Kiselyovsko-Manominsky terrane, a distinguishable tectonic unit in the north of the Sikhote-Alin Range. The terrane has been treated as part of the accretionary wedge belonging to the Khingan-Okhotsk active continental margin, but its structure and stratigraphy have been poorly understood. This paper presents new data on the subterrane structure, lithology and radiolarian biostratigraphy. The following lithostratigraphic units are established in the terrane: a ribbon chert unit, a siliceous mudstone unit and a elastics unit. Abundant Valanginian to late Hauterivian-early Barremian radiolarian assemblages are obtained from the upper part of the chert unit in addition to the known Jurassic radiolarians. The radiolarian age of the lower part of the siliceous mudstone unit (red siliceous mudstone) is determined as early Hauterivian-early Aptian. The unit's upper part (greenish-gray siliceous mudstone and dark-gray silicified mudstone) and the clastics unit contain Albian-Cenomanian assemblages. The arrangement of the units is treated as a chert-elastics sequence, whose vertical lithologic variations indicate environmental changes from a remote ocean to a convergent margin, reflecting an oceanic plate motion towards a subduction zone. The subterrane structure is a stack of imbricated slabs composed of various lithostratigraphic units, and is complicated by folding. The structure's origin is related to subduction-accretion, which occurred in the Albian-Cenomanian. The data presented provide a unique basis for accretionary wedge terranes correlation in the circum-Japan Sea Region, and the Kiselyovsky subterrane is correlated in this study with the synchronous parts of the East Sakhalin, Hidaka and Shimanto terranes. The Albian-Cenomanian radiolarian assemblages were deposited in the Boreal realm, while Valanginian ones are Tethyan; this indicates a long oceanic plate travelling to the north. The former assemblages contain an admixture of older species, redeposited by bottom traction currents and turbidite flows in trench environments.

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SUMMARY A significant margin‐parallel translation of terranes is postulated by all models for tectonic evolution of the East Asian continental margin, although the timing and magnitude of displacements of individual elements are poorly constrained as yet. The West Sakhalin Basin—a forearc basin associated with the Cretaceous volcanic arcs—is one of the displaced tectonic elements. Our palaeomagnetic study of the basin rocks provides the first quantitative constraints on its Cretaceous history. We identified a characteristic magnetization in the Berriasian–Valanginian basalt representing the oceanic basement of the basin and four characteristic magnetizations in a continuous sequence of the Albian to Maastrichtian siliciclastic fill of the basin. A combination of the positive fold, conglomerate and reversals tests supports the primary origin of the remanence in the sediments. Palaeomagnetic data indicate a gradual shift of the West Sakhalin Basin from subequatorial latitudes during the Early Cretaceous to about 40oN by the Late Cretaceous. The main phase of the margin‐parallel migration took place during the Early Cretaceous, and ended by the Cenomanian. The continuous sedimentary sequence records ∼50 degrees of progressive clockwise rotation during the Late Cretaceous.